1767 - 1769



The family's first Ludwigsburg lodging was in the house of the court physician Reichenbach, the father of the painter Ludovike Simanowitz (1759 - 1827), who would later stay in close contact with the family and end up painting several of Schiller's portraits.

This stay did not last long, however. The family soon moved into Cotta's house. When Friedrich entered Latin school, one of his 'house mates', Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven (1759 - 1838) also became his class mate there.

In the fall of 1767, father Johann Kaspar started building a tree nursery behind Cotta's house. In 1767/1768, he published, in five small volumes, his 'Betrachtungen Ueber Landwirtschaftliche Dinge in dem Herzogthum Wuerttemberg . . . Aufgesetzt von einem Herzoglichen Officier', 1769 published together as volume I of the 'Oekonomischen Beytraege zur Befoerderung des buergerlichen Wohlstandes'. These publications dealt with agricultural issues. The tree nursery was the start of what would become father Schiller's later vocation as overseer of the Solitude tree nurseries, after his military retirement in 1775.

Schillers 1768 poem 'Fluch ueber das ungastliche Harteneck und Segen ueber das gastliche Neckarweihingen', which has been lost, expressed the lad's dismay and rejoicing over an actual incident Thomas Carlyle reports on, as well. Friedrich and a fellow student had received a reward of two kreutzers for their good performance in Latin school and wanted to spend the money, fast...they were refused a glass of milk in Harteneck, but served well at Neckarweihingen.

Friedrich's first annual exam of 1769 was one of the exams that, if passed, would entitle a Latin student to enter a Wuerttemberg Lutheran seminary, the successful attendance of which would, usually, be followed by theological studies at the Tuebingen University, the so-called Eberhardina-Carolina.

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